The next thing Laz knew, he was being loaded up into a ship and flying through the stars across the universe to a destination unknown. Those around him were speaking to one another, joking and laughing while planets and such zoomed by, as though this was something they were all used to. As for Laz, someone would occasionally say something to him and when he answered back, they all just responded in whatever way they wanted regardless of what he said. It was clear that whatever was happening was more like a movie than an interaction of some sort as no matter what he said, they didn’t respond to it directly.

Instead of paying attention to that, Laz was curious about this ship he was in along with the people around him. Minus himself and what remained of his master back on the dead outpost, he had never seen another Asura before. Looking at them though, it was hard to relate what he saw of them to what he looked liked, While their hair shared the same sort of white with a red hue, the red hue was basically barely noticeable in almost all of them. Most looked to have only white hair, or some had white mixed with black or white mixed with other colors. Laz couldn’t tell if it was a style choice or something else as to why there were so many varieties. What’s more, none of them had golden eyes. Most of them were normal kinds of colors, brown, blue, green, hazel. A few had red eyes and the kicker about them was that their uniforms were much more elaborate that anything anyone else wore. As for skin tones, again it was a wide spectrum of pale white to dark brown, but there were hints of tattoos on everyone, it was just impossible to make out the extent of it as they were all wearing clothing.

As for the ship they were on, it seems like some sort of space vessel like you would see in a sci-fi movie. The walls were metal and the seats weren’t much better. They were strapped in a long cylinder like area and there was a hum to the metal all around them. Other than that, Laz knew nothing about what was going on. It was hard to even make out the voices or understand what they were saying, not that he couldn’t understand them, but that whatever meaning they were suppose to have didn’t register as words in sentences.

"I’ve never been outside my home world before and I was so excited..." Came a voice from the confusion. Laz heard this one clearly and looked around for it, but didn’t see anyone talking to him. Instead, there was a shift suddenly, like a fade out then a fade in. A lot of noise and loud voices and suddenly there was a bright light coming from the end of the tube along with a lot of hurried voices.

"So much confusion. All I knew was they were yelling at us to leave, so I did. I got unstrapped while others were still trying to figure out what was going on. One minute it was a recorded message to stay in our seats and wait until further orders and then when the doors came open, a bunch of yelling to run. I don’t know how I reacted so quickly, maybe because my body wasn’t able to relax, but I was up and running down the aisle before others even had there straps off. I ran by the flustered looking men who were motioning for us to go as others got up and began to run as well."

Once Laz was out, there was nothing but damage and destruction all around him. Fire raining down everywhere as groups of solders were running all in one direction. Looking around and only seeing the men trying to empty the ship, Laz started running in the same direction as the group of solders. He passed by many other ships which were also trying to empty their passengers as fast as possible before a massive explosion almost knocked him off his feet. Looking back, the ship Laz had just disembarked had been blown to bits as the others that were close by were also catching fire.

"I don’t know if anyone else had gotten off. All I could think of was the fact that I’d known many of them my entire life. We’d gone to school together, played together, grew up together." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Laz felt the tears running down his face as he continued to run, following the solders and pulling a weapon out of his standard storage bracelet. The weapon looked like a rifle, but there was no hole in the barrel nor any sight. It was just a long metal tube with a stock and a blue gem inlaid into it, something they had given everyone as it was the most effective long range weapon they had come up with.

Up ahead, there were a bunch of solders gathered behind barricades, firing their own weapons across the field at things that seemed to be hidden by a dust cloud. The entire area around them was like a barren wasteland of nothing but brown and yellow soil and red rocks. Laz didn’t know if the whole planet looked like this, but he couldn’t imagine people living on this planet if it was.

"Still, this is where we were sent to fight."

"Laz ran up to the barrier and hunkard down, taking deep breaths as the last few minutes finally started catching up to him.

"What are you doing boy?" Came a rough female voice from next to him. Her hair was a mess and she was bleeding from some wound on her head. In one hand was a weapon like his while her other hand held a gem with a strange metal rod wrapped around it and extending off several inches above it.

"No idea mam. We were rushed off our transport and I only got dozens of feet away before it blew. There are no orders and no one in command. I just followed some solders running and ended up here," Laz replied, explaining in as few of words as possible what happened.

"Well. Welcome to the squad. Name’s Marie. Your ours now. Stick your head out and get it burned off. Use your weapon and your sense only and shot anything that’s running our way. Those are your orders. Go!"

Laz pointed his weapon around a corner and spread out his sense like he was told. He soon saw through the dust and could make out massive shapes in the distance, looking like giant animals on fire with literal flames coming out of their bodies. Taking aim, Laz injected his energy into the weapon and felt the spell in the blue gen activate as a massive, high pressure stream of what seemed to be water shot out, hitting one of the beasts and cutting straight through it.

"Hell yay!" Laz said to himself before he felt something hit the back of his head.

"What the hell are you doing recruit. Switch to AOE mode and hit that thing. A small jet of blessed water isn’t going to do a fucking thing to it besides piss it off," A rough man with a hard look in his bloodshot eyes said before aiming his own weapon. As Laz watched on, a massive ball of water formed and shot out, hitting the beast and making it fall over as the ball of water exploded, covering everything in the area as all the charging beasts suddenly stopped and flailed around, seemingly in immense pain.

"That’s a fuck yay moment. Make them count as the ball will drain you quickly. Got it?" The man said before moving away to support someone else.

The battle went on for hours as more and more blasts rocked the transports that came and went as fast as possible and more and more recruits survived the landing. Laz stayed close to Marie and her squad and continued to push back the burning beasts in the distance, guarding their little area as best they could without massive weaponry.

Massive gun like turrets were eventually raised that help push back the beasts even more, but several of their shots still got past the defenders and took out landing ships. It wasn’t until the sun had gone down and the planet was dark that the attackers backed off, allowing the base to be put up in it’s entirety.

Dozens of landing ships and thousands of passengers had been lost, including the landing ship from Laz’s home world. It would be a few days before a roll call was conducted to find out how many survived, but Laz knew the number wouldn’t be high. Even as the walls went up, crying and sobs could be heard coming from all over the base. No one mocked them or told them to stop. Tonight would be their last night to cry because come tomorrow, they would either die fighting or die like a coward.

That was their only choice left.